Job Description Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make
HR Law 101 Ep.4: What You Need to Know About Creating Effective Job Descriptions
During the COVID-19 pandemic and afterwards, employers have faced a growing number of requests for remote work arrangements based on a medical disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to grant...more
When facing requests from a qualified disabled worker, the Americans with Disabilities Act allows employers to choose an effective accommodation, even if it is not the one preferred by the employee. Earlier this week, the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a summary judgment award on an employee’s failure-to-accommodate claim. The Court’s decision focused on the employer’s improperly narrow delineation of the...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations that allow disabled employees to perform the essential functions of their jobs. Over the years, federal appellate courts have reached...more
Fifth Circuit precedent recognizes the “general consensus among courts” that regular, in-person work is an essential function of most jobs. Yet the continued viability of this premise has been in question, given the ability...more
Many employers have experienced an increase in employee requests for accommodations in the past few years. A federal jury’s recent award in Lisa Menninger v. PPD Development L.P. reminds employers that accommodation requests,...more
Several courts have held that an employer violates the ADA simply by refusing to provide a reasonable accommodation regardless of whether the refusal adversely affects the employee. Put another way, these courts hold that the...more
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers are required to consider reassignment to an existing vacant position as a last ditch form of reasonable accommodation for an employee unable to return to their previous...more
If disabled employees are no longer able to perform the essential functions of their job even with reasonable accommodation, under the Americans with Disabilities Act the employer must consider transferring the workers to an...more
In a recent opinion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed that a multi-month leave of absence is not a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)....more
On November 18, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a decision that retailer Lowe’s Home Centers LLC (“Lowe’s”) did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when it removed a...more
It is just a matter of time before most employers will have to decide whether and when it is legally permissible to require their respective workforces to return to the office after months of teleworking during the ongoing...more
In order to claim discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employees must demonstrate that they could perform the essential functions of the job but were denied a reasonable accommodation. Some employers...more
Heeding the adage “no one knows what the future may hold,” the Seventh, Eighth and Eleventh Circuits have uniformly refused to extend protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to employees with a perceived risk...more
The Sixth Circuit previously explained in Hostettler v. College of Wooster, 895 F.3d 844 (6th Cir. 2018) that regular, in-person attendance is not a per se essential function of every job. Rather, employers must tie...more
It was a close call, but a court recently denied an employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act claim that her employer had improperly refused a request to continue working from home as an accommodation. With the growth of...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a 2-1 decision in Bilinsky v American Airlines, Inc., 2019 WL 2610944 (7th Cir. June 26, 2019), the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed American Airlines’ summary judgment win against a former employee who...more
On April 1, 2019, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied summary judgment in an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) case, determining that occasionally excusing employees from...more
Recently, the United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed that regular and reliable attendance is an essential function of most jobs under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Lipp v. Cargill Meat...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: A recent case from the Western District of North Carolina contains a helpful example of how the standards applicable to an employee’s request for accommodation of a disability differ from those for...more
Job-protected leave continues to be the most common accommodation requested by employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act. For employers, the question remains at what point does the amount of work missed end the...more
Recent decisions from the Second, Fifth, and Eighth Circuit Courts of Appeals exemplify the growing consensus amongst courts that even employees with a disability are generally required to comply with company attendance...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations that permit a disabled employee to perform the essential functions of his or her job. What happens, however, when an employer...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The D.C. Circuit recently revived a single-leg amputee’s claim that his former employer failed to accommodate his disability by refusing his request for a classroom aide....more
In recent years, particularly with technology making it easier for employees to work remotely, courts have struggled to determine whether onsite attendance is an essential job function under the Americans with Disabilities...more